Budo was virtually unknown outside of the inner circles of the Aikikai Hombu Dojo until its “re-discovery” was announced in November 1981 in the magazine Aiki News. During an interview I conducted shortly before the article appeared, Zenzaburo Akazawa, a prewar disciple of Morihei Ueshiba, produced a copy of the rare technical manual. Akazawa stated that only a few hundred copies of Budo were distributed and that it served as a training aid and fund-raising device during the difficult years of the prewar era…